EEC-Andean Community Cooperation Agreement

KEY POINTS

• The ‘Andean Community’ is a free trade area set up under the Cartagena Agreement in 1969. It originally comprised 5 countries (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) which were later joined by a sixth country, Venezuela. Two of the countries subsequently withdrew from the community — Chile (1976) and Venezuela (2006).

Cooperation

The parties agreed to set up economic cooperation with the widest possible scope. Areas of cooperation include:

• industry;
• science and technology;
• agriculture and fisheries;
• services;
• technical, health, and plant health regulations;
• regional development and frontier integration.

The aims of the cooperation include:

• strengthening and diversifying their economic links;
• contributing to the sustainable development of their economies and standards of living;
• encouraging the expansion of trade to diversify and open up new markets;
• encouraging the flow of investment, technology transfer and reinforce investment protection;
• raising the level of employment and improve human productivity in the work sector;
• promoting rural development and improve technological capacity;
• supporting the movement towards regional integration;
• exchanging information on statistics and methodology.

Means of cooperation include:

• greater contacts;
• joint participation of EU and Andean Community companies;
• technical assistance, research projects;
• promotion of joint ventures;
• exchange of information;
• and the formation of business networks.